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Saturday, November 24

Five Guys Named Sir

When you write a novel, identifying your hero and heroine
is the easy part. If you write thrillers, like me, identifying your arch-
villain is pretty straightforward too. A lot of writers like to give physical
descriptions of their characters, others say it doesn’t matter and include very
little. Either technique is fine, so long as it works for the reader. A reader
must be able to identify who is who. And as well as the major characters, that
has to apply to the secondary characters too.

Now,
a secondary character cannot have the same page space as your
hero/heroine/villain. In a visual medium like film or TV, it’s a
straightforward process. How many times have you watched an action movie where
the hero has several sidekicks? You’re unlikely to remember them all by name,
but you use a physical identifier. Think of the climax of Star Wars, where Luke
Skywalker was trying to blow up the Death Star along with his squadron.
Die-hard Star Wars fans will, I’m sure, know what every single one of those
characters was called. For the rest of us, we could pick out the carefully
constructed physical differences of each of those pilots: the fat one, the
dark-haired one. We could recognize them as individuals. And we had to, because
knowing who was being picked off added to the tension and made Luke’s situation
even more desperate.

So
far, so Lucas. What about us writers, who only have the written word as our
medium? And what about this writer, who has five knights and has to make sure
readers can tell one from another in quick time? Well, happily, one of them is
my hero. I knew I could be pretty sure that readers would be fine to identify
him.

What
of the other four? This proved a lot harder to do. It’s quite a high number,
but they all have to be there and they all have to have a handle so readers can
tell them apart. So I looked around for some famous foursomes that I could base
them on, to help me lock in on them.

There
are a surprising number of Famous Fours out there, but not all of them provided
a good starting point. I tried the Beatles. Could they translate into four
medieval knights? John Lennon, yes. George Harrison, probably. Paul McCartney
(who, ironically, is a Sir!), probably not. And Ringo Starr…. So I sacked that
idea. Sex and The City gals? No, no, no and no. The Fantastic Four? Better, but
too fantasy based.

Then
I found them, my Four. The Four Evangelists, who wrote the gospels: Matthew,
Mark, Luke and John. Now, I’m not saying for one second that they as human
beings could be in any way similar to four brutal murderers. But in
Christianity, the four evangelists have been represented for hundreds of years
by symbols. Matthew is represented by a winged man, or angel. Mark, a lion.
Luke an ox and John, an eagle. This gave me a great starting point for the
physical appearance and characteristics of my four other knights.

Sir
Reginald Fitzurse, my arch-villain, has ‘fine features’ like Matthew as an
angel. That is, of course, the only angelic thing about him. Sir William de
Tracy is Mark’s lion: loud, muscular. Even his red hair and thick beard give a
nod to a lion’s coat and mane. Sir Richard le Bret, with his ‘huge, hulking frame’ is Luke’s ox, with the associated
huge strength but not a huge amount of intelligence. Sir Hugh de Morville is
John’s eagle, with his ‘scrawny calves’ and spare frame.

They
are, as Thomas Becket says in chapter three, ‘a shameful crew’. But they’re
also a murderous crew. They take Becket’s life in the most horrific way, and
then have their sights set on Sister Theodosia, a young defenceless nun. Only
my fifth knight, Sir Benedict Palmer stands in their way.

The Fifth Knight is published by Thomas & Mercer and is a #1 Bestseller in Action & Adventure and Historical on Amazon.com. Amazon.com customers can purchase it here. Amazon.co.uk customers can purchase it here.

Sir Benedict Palmer returns to Germany on November 1 2016!

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About Me

E.M. Powell’s medieval thrillers THE FIFTH KNIGHT and THE BLOOD OF THE FIFTH KNIGHT have been #1 Amazon bestsellers and a Bild bestseller in Germany. Book #3 in the series, THE LORD OF IRELAND, was published by Thomas & Mercer on April 5 2016. Born and raised in the Republic of Ireland into the family of Michael Collins (the legendary revolutionary and founder of the Irish Free State), she now lives in northwest England with her husband, daughter and a Facebook-friendly dog. She is also a contributing editor to International Thriller Writers The Big Thrill magazine, blogs for English Historical Fiction Authors, reviews fiction & non-fiction for the Historical Novel Society and is part of the HNS Social Media Team. Find out more by visiting www.empowell.com.